As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York, which you can opt out of anytime. Find out how to repay the money you owe from benefit overpayment. Use a benefits calculator to work out how your other benefits will be affected. You can get between £27 to £172.48 a week for 39 weeks if you’re self-employed. This means if you take the full 52 weeks Statutory Maternity Leave, your final 13 weeks will be unpaid.
Maternity allowance, for instance, is a benefit paid by the government to pregnant women who don’t qualify for statutory maternity pay. However, claiming it could affect other benefits you receive, such as Universal Credit, so you’ll need to be aware of the impact this could have on your finances. You might be able to get maternity allowance if you do not qualify for statutory maternity pay (SMP) from your employer. To be eligible for SMP you need to have worked for your employer for a set amount of time and to have earned at least £123 a week, on average. If you don’t meet these requirements, or if you’re self-employed, you might be able to get maternity allowance instead.
Maternity allowance is a social security benefit you can receive if you don’t qualify for statutory maternity pay. You can do self-employed work and it won’t affect your statutory maternity pay. But it could affect any contractual maternity pay you get – check your contract with your existing employer to see what difference it makes.
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Other people wait right up until their due date, in order to save as much time off as possible for after the baby has arrived. Once you receive your MAT B1 form, it’s important to make a copy before doing anything else. If you have 2 jobs you’ll need to give the form to both employers, so making a copy speeds up the process.
This will let you know how much you are likely to receive throughout your maternity leave. When you take time off to have a baby, you might be wondering who pays for maternity leave. You may even be concerned that you’ll have to pay for it yourself. The first 12 weeks of a baby’s life are a crucial time for moms to recover physically and bond with their newborns. To claim maternity allowance, you’ll need to head to the government website and fill out a maternity allowance (MA1) claim form.
If your agency won’t pay you statutory maternity pay, contact your nearest Citizens Advice for help. You can’t get statutory maternity pay if you’re a sole trader, but you might be able to claim maternity allowance instead. If your employer sacks you to avoid paying your maternity pay, you’ll still get your maternity pay as long as you’ve worked for them for at least 8 weeks. It’s also worth seeing what other help and benefits you’re entitled to – such as Child Tax Credit, Healthy Start vouchers and a Sure Start grant. You can claim some benefits before you give birth, so it’s worth checking as soon as you can.
Claimants will receive £156.66 a week or 90% of their average weekly earnings (whichever is less), or a reduced amount of £27 a week. It’s paid for up to 39 weeks and is not taxable or means-tested. If you haven’t been paid enough to get the full rate of £172.48 a week (2023/24), you’ll get £27 a week for 39 weeks if you meet the other qualifying criteria for Maternity Allowance. To check the exact dates when your average pay is worked out, or to get other help with maternity pay, talk to an adviser. Statutory maternity pay can last 39 weeks, but it will end sooner if you go back to work before then. As well as being a mum of two, Rachel is a freelance personal finance journalist who has been writing about everything from mortgages to car insurance for over a decade.
If you have any problems, Gary Wedderburn, an adviser at Acas, the Advisory, conciliation and arbitration service, suggests seeking advice. “If you are eligible for statutory maternity pay and your employer refuses to pay, you can contact Acas for advice. Statutory maternity pay disputes are ultimately resolved by HMRC’s Statutory Payment Dispute Team, but it is recommended that you try to resolve the issue with your employer first,” he explains. You’ll need to include your Test Period dates in the claim form. Your Test Period is the 66 weeks before the week you expect to have your baby.
The benefit cap limits the total amount of benefit you can get. It applies to most people aged 16 or over who haven’t reached State Pension age. Check your contract with your existing employer before you work for someone else.
The answer could, in some circumstances, be all three of these. While the government may pay a base level of maternity pay, your employer can top it up. However, if you want to take the full year off, you’ll likely have to fund the last three months yourself.
